Aei
by ProfessorCactustheThird
Summary: [Aei (adv) /aeː/ Origin: Ancient Greek Meaning: Always] Christmas Eve 2022. With their growing family, Christmas seems to get busier and crazier every year. But there's always time to pause and remember everything that happened to bring them to where they are now.


This is a fic I wrote way back in February/March, but am only now getting around to posting. I haven't done much pure fluff and love for a while, in no small part thanks to season 3, but if there's no love during the holidays, when can there ever be, right?

* * *

"Walter, where are the other two boxes of decorations?" Between the garage-wide sound system Happy had installed that was currently blaring Christmas songs, and everyone talking over each other, Paige had to raise her voice over the growing din of the team's annual Christmas Eve party to be heard.

Walter looked up from where he was bickering with Toby over which decorations to hang where. "I thought we brought them all down?" He asked, wincing as his wife glared at him.

"No, we have boxes 1, 4 and 5. You're smart enough to know that there are two numbers missing in that sequence."

"Depends on the sequence," Ralph piped up. "There are various logarithmic and exponential sequences in which 1, 4 and 5 are immediately next to each other." He glanced around at the others; the older geniuses were smirking proudly at him while his mother and Cabe had buried their faces in their hands out of exasperation. "What? You didn't specify your terms."

Walter raised his eyebrows as his son unknowingly repeated the same words that had almost gotten him caned in school all those years ago, if not for...

Naturally, his mind wandered to Megan and he found himself staring at the Band-Aid Sylvester still faithfully wore around his finger. He smiled sadly to himself, _if only she were here to see us now_.

"Walter?" Paige's insistent voice brought him out of his thoughts and he nodded, promising to go get them.

"I'll come with, if I think we just dumped the lights in after last year. Need to check if they're all working well." Happy said, shooting Toby a look as she got up from the table where she was building the gingerbread house with their daughter, handing her to Toby and jogging to catch up with Walter.

Happy opened the second box while making a mental note to kill her husband later, damn him and his insisting on _"just stuff them in, let next year us figure it out"_ the previous year. "Hey Walt, might need a bit of help detangling these wires."

She turned around when silence replied her, to see Walter standing at the top rail of the stairs, looking over at the bustle and drama that was unfolding downstairs.

"The garage seems more... crowded than when we first started," he stated simply in typical Walter fashion, not even looking back at her as he continued watching the rest of the team.

He was right, as he always is. Happy remembered when she and Walter first started out at the garage, it was just an empty structure. Collins had been aggravating from the moment he barged in, but just before she got sick of him enough to leave, Walter had dragged in two street rats from god-knows-where. Things seemed to turn up when Sylvester and Toby joined, each bringing their unique additions- Sly with his fears and obsession over hygiene and orderliness, whom she grew to love and protect as the younger brother she'd never had; and Toby with his fun and snark and intrusive psychoanalysis that she had almost killed him for far too many times than she's bothered to count, though God knows it's her lifeblood now.

As they were stabilizing a new, albeit fragile, equilibrium, Collins started going full psycho, almost dragging Walter down with him, and causing and leaving behind nothing but destruction so great that they thought they'd never get out. And then, just as they were thinking about giving up altogether, three Homeland agents barged in with a case about LAX that they solved in a local diner with the help of a young waitress and her genius son, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Happy grinned as she walked up to join him, gripping the railing as she partially leaned her weight against it. "Does this mean we can finally get the new place you promised since, when was it, Kazakhstan?"

He blinked at her, still not able to perfectly distinguish between tease and serious talk all of the time. "Do you want to?"

Happy shrugged, leaning further to rest her elbows on the rail. "I know logic and efficiency dictate that we get a place where everyone has more space to do their work more comfortably in…"

"But?"

"I don't know, Walt," she paused as Toby caught her gaze from downstairs, his eyes twinkling as he beamed up at her, an action she felt herself reciprocate, and he got their daughter to wave up at her too. "Maybe my definition of 'comfortable' has changed a bit over time."

Walter hummed in the way he did when he was thinking over something very seriously. "So you're saying we don't have to change?"

She shook her head, mulling over her words before speaking. "I think I'm saying we have already changed. If you ask me, I'd say it's more cozy, than crowded."

He stared at her, remembering how the Happy Quinn he had first met all those years ago didn't even have 'cozy' in her vocabulary. "You've become more sappy than I could have predicted."

"I've been with the Doc for six years, Walt, and married for five of them, with a nearly three year old kid." She smirked. "What else did you expect?"

Walter smiled back and nodded silently as his sharp eyes searched the ground floor till they found Paige, who had taken Sylvester to a quiet corner to string popcorn, away from the loud mess of the rest of the party. He scanned the main area again until he saw their 19-month old, held safely in her older brother's arms.

"That time we were trapped in the submarine and we commented on how we weren't robots anymore..." He spoke after a while, quieter this time.

She nodded solemnly, the memory of being trapped under water and barely getting out alive still vivid in her mind despite all the years that had passed since. "Who'd have thought we'd come this much further right?"

"I-" Walter was interrupted by Cabe shouting at them to hurry up and bring down the decorations before the kids 'eat me up'.

They both chuckled, Walter's conversation skills having evolved enough over the years that he didn't judge on the impossibility of the kids literally eating Cabe.

"You prefer it like this though?" He asked Happy as they turned to grab the boxes.

"Yeah," She looked back briefly to see Toby lifting their daughter up on his shoulders so she could hang his signature fedora trinket on one of the higher branches. "Yeah Walt, I really do. Wouldn't have it any other way."

* * *

"You and Walt seemed to be having a pretty serious conversation earlier," Toby commented as he and Happy finally fell into bed, exhausted. Convincing a genius toddler to go to sleep early on Christmas Eve was difficult enough after she had already figured out Santa didn't exist a few months back, and that was without the sugar rush she had gotten when they had noticed too late that she was helping herself to the gingerbread and popcorn.

"Hmm," Happy curled into his side. "Just talking about how things had changed since we started out."

Toby raised an eyebrow at her. "Walter O'Brien was getting sentimental?"

"Happens to the best of us," she turned to grin at him. "He said I'd become more sappy than he'd expected. I blamed it on you."

"And rightfully so," He tickled her side. "You're welcome, sweetheart."

She giggled as she squirmed in his arms, before settling back against his side, a little more solemn this time. "What he said was true though, the garage has become more crowded these past few years."

Toby made a face. "Crowded sounds... stuffy. And uncomfortable. I'd go with cozy."

Happy smiled as Toby mirrored her words from earlier. Or rather, she realized, she has started mirroring Toby's words and behaviorisms, opening up more to the emotional aspect of life and relationships.

She hummed in response, repeating what she had told Walter earlier. "I guess my definition of 'comfortable' as changed a bit."

Toby laughed, "You mean from the ten-foot radius of personal space that you threatened me with a blowtorch to give you, to now cuddling after we've finally put our daughter to bed?"

Happy could only gaze up at him as he spoke. Until he made such an explicit comparison between then and now, she hadn't quite realized how far she'd come since they first met; how far they'd come.

"Hap?" He bumped her side gently, knowing she was deep in her thoughts and memories, and wanting to be a part of it.

"You annoyed the hell out of me when you first joined, I pretty much hated you for a while," she mused.

"Oh, I know." Toby grinned somewhat smugly. "But I also knew that if I kept bugging you enough, you'd eventually loosen up. Looks like I was right."

"Did you also know how many different ways I had planned to murder you and make sure nobody even found trace evidence?"

He blinked, still scared of what she was capable of even after being together this long, but recovered quickly, a suggestive smirk on his face. "So you had been daydreaming of what you'd do to me if you got me alone, since way back then? Aww Hap, you shouldn't have."

She elbowed his ribs with just enough pressure for him to yelp and apologize. "You didn't really let me forget you, always barging in and doing your stupid psychoanalysis."

"Well I still do, you just don't complain so much." He reasoned, a smirk growing. "And it's a good thing I didn't let you forget me, eh?"

She scowled at him, though her smile gave away how it was all good natured. "You were such a jerk back then. Well you still are sometimes, but-"

"But now it's endearing and loveable instead of annoying?" He grinned proudly.

"Still annoying," she poked his side. "But I guess I've learned to put up with it."

"I knew you'd warm up to me," he teased, pulling her closer into his side and pressing a kiss to her temple. "But really though, when we first started out, who'd have thought right? I mean not just us, but the team as a whole."

Happy smiled as she nodded. Being the first to join, she had been forced to sit through every potential expansion plan Walter had ever come up with, some notably crazier than others. But even with his IQ, and later with all the probabilities he had made Sylvester calculate, she was sure that he could have never predicted this as a possible outcome."I'm pretty sure adding in two normals and three kids was not Walt's initial plan when he was talking about expansion."

"You think?" Toby grinned. "And not to mention of the two, one would be Mr. Whoops Sorry About Baghdad, and he'd end up marrying and having two kids with the other."

"And us getting married and having Jess-"

"And Sly marrying Megan!" They exclaimed softly together, and couldn't help but share smiles at all the memories.

"You know, I've known Walt three years before you came in, but the first time I learnt Megan existed was when I overheard him asking if you knew about any cures for her. And if someone had told him that the kid he picked up off the streets a few months earlier would end up..." Happy trailed off, looking up at Toby as they both remembered their sister they'd lost all too soon before they even got to know her as well as they would've liked to.

Toby tightened his grip around her. "If only she could see them now, she'd be so proud. Especially how much Walt has grown emotionally, but also how strong Sly has been."

Happy bit her lip as she tried to come up with how to best convey what she was feeling. "I'm not saying I believe in the supernatural stuff- I doubt I ever will- but somehow I feel Megan _does_ know, you know?"

She felt Toby nod, brushing his lips against the top of her head. They both lay there in silence for a while, holding each other and relishing in all they've gone through and achieved together, until Happy propped herself up on her elbow. Shifting carefully, she interlaced her fingers on his chest and rested her chin on them. "Thank you, Toby."

"For what, sweetheart?" He asked, brushing away her hair falling across her face.

Happy shrugged. "Everything, I guess. I could have never even dreamt of being this happy and content if it weren't for you and how much you helped me change for the better."

"Hey, I couldn't have done anything if you hadn't let me in. It was a team effort, love." He smiled, hugging her tightly and pressing her even closer to him.

"Thank you for waiting for me to catch up to you."

"When I told you I'd never give up, I meant it with all my heart. And I always will."

Toby felt Happy smile against his chest at the mention of what had been one of the first big moments for them. "I know that was only seven years ago, but it seems like a lifetime."

"Well, it was more than twice of Jess's lifetimes ago." They both instinctively turned to the baby monitor on Happy's bedside table- that Happy had made herself and Walter had helped jack up till it could pretty much do everything but physically interact with the toddler-, warm and loving smiles growing on their faces as they watched their daughter fast asleep. Clutched tightly in her arms was the adorable, if slightly cheesy, teddy bear with _I Love You Beary Much_ stitched onto a heart it was holding against its stomach, that Toby had gotten for Happy on their second anniversary.

Turning back to him, Happy nuzzled even closer to him. "I've never thought about it till now, but it's crazy how far we've come."

"Don't get too comfortable Hap," Toby laughed, "There's still quite a ways more to go."

"Mmhmm," A familiar fire surged through Happy as she sat up to straddle him, seeing the spark in his eyes ignite as well, as she leaned down toward him. "I expect at least another fifty years of this, Doc. Bare minimum."

Toby felt a snarky reply at the top of his tongue, but Happy was already kissing him, fingers lightly raking down his chest, and he was smart enough to know that words were really not needed at the moment.

* * *

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Comments are always appreciated if you have the time :)


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